Page:Men of Mark in America vol 1.djvu/403

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WILLIAM FRANKLIN DRAPER
303

receiving promotion to first lieutenant, immediately after the battle and capture of Fort Macon, he returned to his regiment, and in August, 1862, was commissioned captain in the 36th Massachusetts volunteers. When Burnside was ordered to join the Army of the Potomac he served under him in the Antietam campaign including the battle of Sharpsburg, September 16-17, and the battle of Fredericksburg, December 11-15, 1S62. He was with Burnside in Kentucky in pursuit of General John Morgan and other guerrilla troops operating on the borders of Ohio. In June, 1863, he joined Grant's army in front of Vicksburg, taking part in the siege and the capture of that place, July 4, 1S63. His regiment then joined in the march to Jackson, Mississippi, and for his services in this campaign he was appointed major of the 36th Massachusetts regiment of volunteers. In August, 1863, he took part in Burnside's defense of Knoxville, and in the battles of Blue Springs, Tennessee, October 10, 1863, Campbell's Station, November 16, 1843, and Strawberry Plains. Colonel Goodell having been wounded at the battle of Blue Springs, Major Draper took command of the regiment after the tenth of October. In the spring of 1864 Burnside's corps was sent to Annapolis, Maryland, and joined to the Army of the Potomac. On May 6, 1864, during the battle of the Wilderness, while leading his regiment in an assault on a Confederate rifle pit he was shot through the body and left on the field, his regiment being driven back. He was taken prisoner by the Confederates, but recaptured the same day and sent to a hospital in Washington. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel for his bravery in this battle. He joined his regiment during the siege of Petersburg, although not fully recovered from his wounds, and he was given the command of a brigade during the engagement on the Weldon Railroad, August 18-21, 1864, and a month later commanded the brigade at Poplar Grove church. At the battle of Pegram Farm, September 30, 1864, he was wounded in the shoulder and so disabled that he was soon invalided home. On the twelfth of October, 1864, he was honorably discharged from the volunteer army with the brevet rank of colonel and brigadier-general for "gallant service during the war."

After more than three years spent in the service of his country and still suffering from wounds received in that service, General Draper became a partner in his father's firm of George Draper and Sons, manufacturers of cotton machinery, of Hopedale, Massachu-